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Warlord Games have just confirmed something that fans have been speculating about for over a year. Hail Caesar (the game, not the movie) is getting the Epic Battles treatment, with a focus on the Punic Wars! This is awesome news, so let’s dive in and pick it apart a little bit.
Over the last several years Warlord Games has been meticulously transforming their library of mass battle games into, well, even more massive battle games. Black Powder, Pike & Shotte and Hail Caesar are designed for large armies of 28mm miniatures. There is no individual model removal in these games, unlike Warhammer: The Old World, for instance, so miniatures tend to be based as whole units, or stands of units, rather than individuals. This can present a barrier to entry for many hobbyists, as it means you need a ton of minis and they are not set up for use in other games.
The obvious solution to this is to create smaller minis that are meant to share a base in order to make truly epic battles, and that’s just what Warlord has done. Starting with Black Powder, Warlord made 12.5mm miniatures for the American Civil War. The box set came with a truly massive number of miniatures (if you are counting them individually, which isn’t entirely fair), as well as some beautiful, laser cut terrain. The minis could be painted as either side, so there was not much variation, but it still looked good. Next came Epic Battles: Waterloo, another Black Powder game, this time featuring three unique armies and even more unique terrain. Focusing on this single campaign meant that the scope of the game had specific boundaries. There was never going to be an Austrian or Russian army, or Peninsular War British, let alone any of the minor factions, but all three armies were made of unique miniatures. Then last year we got Epic Battles: Pike & Shotte, which went back to the formula of one-shape-fits-all miniatures, but now, with different flags and paint jobs they could be fighting in The English Civil War or any number of factions in the Thirty Years War.
With Epic Battles: Hail Caesar – The Punic Wars, Warlord has moved on to their third game and historical setting. The Punic Wars were fought between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Empire. The Romans were expanding rapidly and came into contact with the large Carthaginian Empire in Sicily. The First Punic War lasted 23 years and ended with Rome taking control of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. The Second and most famous Punic War featured the Carthaginian general Hannibal crossing the Alps with his war elephants and campaigning in Italy for 14 years before ultimately being recalled to defend Carthage from Roman invasion. The Third Punic war witnessed the siege and destruction of the city of Carthage itself and the supposed sowing of salt into the Carthaginian fields to prevent them from bearing crops ever again.
This is a fantastic choice by Warlord Games for Hail Caesar. First of all, both armies are wildly different from one another, but also have enormous variety within them. The Carthaginians were a very wealthy empire and relied on mercenaries from all over the Mediterranean. Numidian Horsemen, Iberian Slingers, Libyan Hoplites, warriors from Gaul and Iberia would all gather under the banners of Carthage. Oh they had war elephants, too! The Roman army had not yet become the professionally equipped and trained army that we are so used to seeing in modern media. Rome had no standing army, but would instead levy or conscript its forces from its own people in time of war and organize them based on social status and the weapons and armor they could afford. Unarmored Velites would use missile weapons to screen the infantry, formed into three battle lines, each more heavily armed and armored than the one before it. Rome had its allied contingents, but the primary weapon was this Triplex Acies of infantry.
Roman and Carthaginian armies of this period both look great, with loads and troops types, and they fight entirely differently. There are dozens of battles from North Africa, to Spain, to Gaul, to Rome, where both sides saw amazing victories and suffered crushing defeats. The Hail Caesar ruleset is a lot of fun and has a solid following online, which promises a good game to come. What do you think, could this upcoming range from Warlord Games entice you to pick up historical wargaming? Let us know in the comments!
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